1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a workflow system which implements a document workflow by sending and receiving document data among image forming apparatuses connected to a network and capable of communicating with each other, and particularly to search processing for data used in a workflow.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, digital multifunction peripherals to which many functions are added using a digital copy machine as the nucleus have become commercially practical. That is, the digital multifunction peripheral performs a facsimile communication using a scanner and a printer which are originally equipped in the digital copy machine. Further, the multifunction peripheral rasterizes code data sent from a computer into bitmap data to perform printout using the printer. Further, the multifunction peripheral sends images loaded from the scanner onto the network using the scanner, and prints the images transmitted from the network using the printer. Such a function addition prevails. Furthermore, some digital multifunction peripherals have a box function added. That is, a storage device of the digital multifunction peripheral has regions for each user individual and department, and printer images and scan images and documents have been stored previously therein, and are output when the user desires.
The recent years have also seen the emergence of a digital multifunction peripheral which is provided with a Java execution environment therein, and enables a desired application execution.
A Java program used in the digital multifunction peripheral has functions which cooperate with scan, print, send, and box functions of the digital multifunction peripheral. There exist Java programs for, for instance, optical character reader (OCR), translation, document management, and document storage.
A system which implements a workflow by a plurality of digital multifunction peripherals connected to a network, by utilizing such functions is also discussed. For instance, in an approval flow of an application form, first, an applicant scans the application form, and sends data to an approver. The approver, upon receiving the data, performs approval processing, and sends the data to a next approver. A case is cited in which a final approver notifies the applicant of approval and permission, and in addition, stores the application form in a designated server or the like.
Further, there is available a document search system, which is, by associating a document found by a search engine with management information of a work process, capable of searching for a document of the associated work process (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-250922).
Further, there is available a document management apparatus, which, even if movement of a document or change of document name or the like occurs within a document management system, enables a user to track its history, and to extract the corresponding document using an identifier of the document which a client memorizes before then (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-357051).
In the above-described example, a system which executes a workflow is such a normal workflow system that includes a server for managing the workflow and controls the workflow.